Mass Effect: Reconstruction
by Screech1995
Summary: In the wake of the Reaper Invasion, Commander Shepard beats death once again. This time to fufill his promise to Tali on building her a home on Rannoch. Major OOC (possibly) dunno what the final rateing will be, doubt ill finish this due to college. Updates will be Sporatic at best. Chapters will be kept small, may merge a few later on to make longer.
1. Chapter 1

Commander Shepard looked up from where he lay on the ground. Dust and ash clung to the sky but patches of blue could be seen as gentle breezes blew the ashes of burnt buildings away. Pain laced through his body as he took a deep breath of the dust filled air.

The first thing he noticed was the warm feeling coming from his chest. Looking down he saw that a pile of rubble had landed on his legs, effectively pinning them in place with no chance of him being able to free them himself. As slowly as he could without causing himself excruciating pain Shepard placed his hand on his semi-melted N7 armor feeling the blood that poured from a deep gash across his sternum.

_At least it hit bone, else I would be dead no matter what._ Shepard smirked, looking into the sky as debris from thousands of warships and fighters and parts of the citadel fell from the sky. He sighed softly, thinking of his friends, family, and crewmembers. They were safe from the threat of the Reapers, Cerberus was finished, and they had lived through it all.

Smiling to the sky Shepard thought of everything he had done over the course of his life; fighting Saren, Sovereign, the Collectors, and now the Reapers. _Once again we face each other Death_, he thought to himself, _one time beating you is good, but twice? That's daring, even for me. _Shepard slowly closed his eyes as his vision dimmed. He knew his chances of survival were limited at best now with his wounds and he accepted it.

The last thing Shepard noticed as he slipped into the warm embrace of death was the yellow color of an emergency vehicle hovering over his crushed body.

Tali ran up the piles of rubble that had formed after the ensuing battle. Corpses littered the ground as she looked for one person. She looked around seeing hundreds of bodies but none of them familiar, none of them alive.

_Come on! You said you would come back, you said you would return. You promised me! _She thought to herself as she sat on the highest pile of debris. She heard the sound of footsteps behind her but pain no attention to them; she looked out into the scared land looking for a sign that he might be alive.

"Tali." the soft voice of Admiral Raan echoed in Tali's ear, "Child, come there is much to do. We need to help rebuild the ships and relays. There is also the wounded we must tend to."

"I know Auntie Raan, But…" Tali choked, "he promised me he would come back, he promised me."

"There, there child, I know it's hard but we can't keep on searching, there hasn't been a medi-evac in the past six hours."

"We just can't give up on finding him! He's out there we just have to keep looking!"

"We are not giving up yet, but we can't continue the search for much longer either. We need to regroup and start over. Form a better search party then just a few people randomly looking."

Tali sighed quietly tears threatening to fall as she stood up she knew Admiral Raan was right. "I'm just scared that if we stop looking we may never find him at all." She said as the older Quarian hugged her gently. As she pulled away to look at her, a yellow emergency vehicle sped past sirens blaring towards the hospital.

Hope sprung into Tali's eyes as she watched it rush by her. She knew it could only be one person alive in that area that had been carved with harbingers beam .Feeling nothing but hope she ran with the Admiral to their vehicle and followed the medi-evac to the closest functioning hospital.


	2. Chapter 2

"My God!" the Medi-Evac personnel said, "Get Admiral Hackett now. Tell him we found him. Head straight for Huerta Memorial since its docked where the beam was."

Shepard could feel the turbulence from the shuttle as it raced across the sky to the hospital. He knew time was limited for him but he fought for every second of it. Time stood still for the commander as he watched the monitor, he heard voices but they were muddled in his ear.

Pain shot across his chest as he felt cold steel cut his melted armor off him bit by bit. While the Medi-evac continued to remove his armor the shuttle jolted to a stop as it arrived at its destination. The shuttle doors were thrown open as a mixture of Quarian, Turian, and Human doctors and nurses put Shepard on a stretcher.

* * *

"Take him immediately to the Operating Room now!" a tall Quarian Doctor said to the others, "Get the rest of that armor off of him, and treat those burns now."

Shepard heard the wail of sirens as he was wheeled in the ER doors towards the OR. His breathing Irregular He looked around for a familiar face but found none as he saw wounded soldiers and civilians, some with simple cuts and bullet wounds to more sever amputees. He grasped in his pocket for the picture of Tali she had given to him hoping to take some comfort in just seeing her picture but all he found was a hole blown through his armor and leg.

Looking to the side as he was wheeled away, he saw it flutter to the ground partly burned, before he passed out again.

"Damn! We're losing him!" the Quarian Doctor said, "Give him another dose, close the Femoral artery now or he'll bleed out."

The operating room was total chaos with the exception of the Quarian yelling orders to everyone.

"His lung is punctured sir!" one female turain nurse said.

"Well remove whatever punctured it and fix it! You can see I'm busy with this liver transplant!" The Quarian snapped at her. "

Hours passed as the medical team worked tirelessly over Commander Shepard, making sure that the savior of the Galaxy lived.

"He's losing blood again sir!" A human Doctor said this time.

'Damn, don't die on me now Commander, forty-five years as the Quarians best doctor and I've never lost a patient. I don't intend to lose one now, especially one so important to the Galaxy.' The Quarian Doctor said to himself before turning back to the operating table and saying, "Alright, hook up another bag of blood to him, and find  
where he's bleeding at!"

* * *

Tali had followed the medi-evac all the way back to the hospital. After the shuttle had left she landed the air car and ran in after him, leaving Raan to move the car.

The doctors had wheeled him in so fast that once she got out she lost sight of him. Unsure of where to go she asked the nurse who was at the reception counter if she knew where Shepard had been taken to. The nurse had replied saying that he had been taken to the OR but she couldn't go back there because his burns made infections a priority.

"Thank you." Tali said to the nurse walking to one of the many empty chairs in the waiting room.

As she sat memories of the countless missions her and Shepard had gone on came back. She felt overwhelmed by them. She didn't know what she would do if she lost him. Not after how hard it was the first time, before Cerberus had rebuilt him. Tali was lost so deep in thought that she didn't even notice that the entire crew of the Normandy had taken seats in the waiting room around her.

"Tali," a rough voice she immediately recognized as Garrus, "He'll be okay, he's Commander Shepard. I know he won't let a little battle damage take him."

"But what if it does Garrus... what… what if this time there is no escape from death for him. You yourself saw what happened to the others when we rushed Harbinger, armor melted onto their skin…"

She felt his hand pat her shoulder gently, "You're forgetting, he's Shepard. He killed sovereign, Seren, the Collectors, and the Reapers. He allied a Galaxy that could never be allied. And most of all he promised to build you a house on Rannoch. The Commander doesn't make a promise he can't keep."

Tali took a deep breath and said "I know, but…"

Before Tali could finish a deep human voice resounded throughout the waiting room announcing, "Admiral on deck!"

At that the entire crew of the Normandy stood at attention and saluting, facing the doors as Admiral Hackett walked through towards Tali.

"At ease." Hackett said, "You all can be seated. Admiral Zorah,"

"Please sir, just call me Tali. Admiral Zorah was my Father."

"Of course. The commander is out of surgery now and is asleep. I figured you would want to be first to know because of your twos relationship."

Tali stood dumbstruck. '_How does he know about us? We havn't told anyone, not even Admiral Raan...'_

Hackett saw her confusion and said smiling, "I have two eyes Miss Zorah, I'm not blind. And ohh, I belive this is the Commanders. I saw it fall from his grasp as he was wheeled in.

"Now if you'll excuse me, there are many more soldiers I must see to thank for their sacrifices" The admiral said to her and the crew saluting them first as he left to continue his visits.

"Go on Tali, we'll stay here and wait as long as needed." Garrus said to her

Tali just looked at the burnt picture she had recived from Admiral Hackett, it was the same one she had given him after he had brokered a treaty between the Geth and the Quarians on Rannoch. Turning it around on the back she saw between the splotches of blood the words she had wrote on it read 'To the man who's stolen my heart, and given me a homeworld. Stay safe. '

She was all to thankful for the visor that covered her face as she felt tears slide down her cheeks. Opening the door the Commanders room Tali saw just how bad of shape he really was in. His legs were in cast up to his waist, there a metal bar was inserted to keep his pelvis intact so it would heal properly. Gauz and skin graphs covered the entirity of his chest, and bandages were wraped around his stomach while tubes and wires were attached all over his arms. The one thing that caught her attention the most though was his left hand, his pinky and middle fingers were amputated at the knuckle giving his hand a almost Quarian look.

Pulling a chair up to his side, Tali gently held his uninjured right hand between her hands and listened to the soft sound of his breathing and the constant beeping of the heart monitor.

* * *

**Well, hope this is okay, was a pain in the rump to write, but there it is. Enjoy. BTW, if anyonw knows how to add a line to seperate between POV's and the such, please leave how in the comments, I've tried everything lol.**


	3. Chapter 3

Shepard slowly opened his eyes as light filtered across his eyes warming his face uncomfortably. He looked at his surroundings seeing a multitude of items around him. The first thing he saw was his legs, wrapped up in white plaster casting and elevated slightly to help with blood flow. Turning to the blinds that were doing a horrible job at keeping the light out of his eyes he saw a couple of plants and cards, mostly from the crew of the Normandy, but also a few from high ranking officials such as admiral Hackett and Raan along with councilors Tevos, Valern, and Sparatus.

Shepard turned his head to the news report on the wall, he saw the destruction of London and the repairs that were already underway, he saw Krogan and Turians working alongside Quarian technicians as they helped Human workers rebuild. Smiling to himself he continued to look around seeing his left hand he raised it up wary of the wires and tubes that were connected to his upper arm. The commander stared at his hand seeing that his pinky and middle fingers were all but gone. He exhaled quickly accepting his wounds but laughed quietly, immediately regretting it as pain laced across his chest, realizing that his hand now looked similar to a quarians. Something behind Shepards hand caught his attention as he placed his hand on the medical cot.

There on a chair next to his bed was Tali sleeping. Shepard watched the slow rise and fall of her chest, smiling. He could see the creases in her suit indicating how exhausted she must have been. Shepard knew remembering the conversations they had on the SR-1that she always kept her suit smooth and clean for safety reasons. Trying to make as little noise as possible, he moved slowly into a more comfortable position feeling his legs numb slightly falling asleep from the reduced blood flow, the creaky cot though had other ideas, squeaking as the commander adjusted slowly. He soon realized his efforts at keeping quiet had failed as Tali's head popped up looking around for the noise.

"H… hey." He choked out quietly, his voice weak from being unused for days.

"Hey, how do you feel?"

"I feel like death." Shepard took a shallow breath an asked, "Did it work? Did we stop the Reapers? And how are you here? I heard that y'all got caught in the crucibles energy…"

Tali smiled this was the Shepard she knew, always worried about others instead of his health and wellbeing. She took a deep breath and explained to him that they had defeated the Reapers and were using their parts to fix the Mass Relays. She explained that the crucible acted as a huge EMP and shut them down with no one to manually restart them they just floated in space and stood where they were planet side allowing them to kill them after they restarted their ships.

"As for how I am here with the rest of the Normandy's crew it was just a matter of manually restarting the drive core and figuring our bearings." She said to him.

"And what about EDI and the Geth?"

"We manually restarted them as well. It only took a few hours to restart the Geth, after having a handful of them back online, they proceeded to restart the rest of their race. They're now helping build the more dangerous parts of the Citadel and Mass Relays."

Shepard looked out his window again realizing he had been in this room before. It was the same room Ashley had been in after her encounter with Dr. Eva on Mars just after the Reaper invasion of Earth. He smiled slightly then turned back to Tali and asked, "What about Cerberus? I know we destroyed their base in the Horseshoe Nebula but are they still a threat?"

"They are not a threat anymore, in fact, without the Illusive Man at their head they have been really beneficial. With so many of their high ranking officials killed on their base, Miranda has taken over and turned over all projects and breakthroughs to the council."

"What kind of breakthroughs?"

"Well," Tali said rubbing her hands the way she did when she was nervous or excited, "They managed to come up with a series of shots and antibiotics for Quarians Boosting our immune systems to be as strong as other species, and when added with the Geth that have integrated to our suits, we… we can finally take our suits within a month or so and those who don't have Geth integrated maybe three or four months.

"Another isn't just for Quarians, but all species. It's a genetic change though, it allows the taker of the injection to be able to eat not just their normal diet but also add dextro-protein based foods if they're say a Human or Asari or Krogan. Or if they are Turian or Quarian eat levo-protein based foods, though it takes about one Human year before safely being able to do so. It also allows for inter-species couple to be able to have children."

"Wow. So Cerberus wasn't a bad idea after all, just the man behind it." After looking over his injuries again he asked, "So how bad am I?"

"Well if I'm reading this medical report correctly, your legs should have been shattered beyond repair but due to your implants from Cerberus they remained mostly intact. Your pelvis was split in half, that's why the bar is there to help it mend and after about a week or two they'll remove it. You had numerous lacerations and fractures in your ribs, and your armor was melted to your chest. A normal recovery time would take months or years, but with your implants the doctors said you could be walking with a cane or some other form of support in as little as a month and be fully healed in about two.

"Now rest. There's no longer a war to worry about." Tali got up and walked over to his bedside, "I'll still be here when you wake up."

Shepard ran his hand over her suit gently smoothing out the folds and said to her, "you need to sleep too," wrapping his arm around her he pulled her gently into his cot, "sleep here instead of that chair, there's more than enough room for the two of us."

Tali smiled and whispered moving closer to him gently and said, "For as long as you like."


End file.
